American Foundations

American Foundations

Author: Helmut K. Anheier

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2010-09-01

Total Pages: 471

ISBN-13: 0815704577

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Foundations play an essential part in the philanthropic activity that defines so much of American life. No other nation provides its foundations with so much autonomy and freedom of action as does the United States. Liberated both from the daily discipline of the market and from direct control by government, American foundations understandably attract great attention. As David Hammack and Helmut Anheier note in this volume, "Americans have criticized foundations for... their alleged conservatism, liberalism, elitism, radicalism, devotion to religious tradition, hostility to religion—in short, for commitments to causes whose significance can be measured, in part, by the controversies they provoke. Americans have also criticized foundations for ineffectiveness and even foolishness." Their size alone conveys some sense of the significance of American foundations, whose assets amounted to over $530 billion in 2008 despite a dramatic decline of almost 22 percent in the previous year. And in 2008 foundation grants totaled over $45 billion. But what roles have foundations actually played over time, and what distinctive roles do they fill today? How have they shaped American society, how much difference do they make? What roles are foundations likely to play in the future? This comprehensive volume, the product of a three-year project supported by the Aspen Institute's program on the Nonprofit Sector and Philanthropy, provides the most thorough effort ever to assess the impact and significance of the nation's large foundations. In it, leading researchers explore how foundations have shaped—or failed to shape—each of the key fields of foundation work. American Foundations takes the reader on a wide-ranging tour, evaluating foundation efforts in education, scientific and medical research, health care, social welfare, international relations, arts and culture, religion, and social change.


Foundations of the American Century

Foundations of the American Century

Author: Inderjeet Parmar

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2012-04-03

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 0231517939

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Inderjeet Parmar reveals the complex interrelations, shared mindsets, and collaborative efforts of influential public and private organizations in the building of American hegemony. Focusing on the involvement of the Ford, Rockefeller, and Carnegie foundations in U.S. foreign affairs, Parmar traces the transformation of America from an "isolationist" nation into the world's only superpower, all in the name of benevolent stewardship. Parmar begins in the 1920s with the establishment of these foundations and their system of top-down, elitist, scientific giving, which focused more on managing social, political, and economic change than on solving modern society's structural problems. Consulting rare documents and other archival materials, he recounts how the American intellectuals, academics, and policy makers affiliated with these organizations institutionalized such elitism, which then bled into the machinery of U.S. foreign policy and became regarded as the essence of modernity. America hoped to replace Britain in the role of global hegemon and created the necessary political, ideological, military, and institutional capacity to do so, yet far from being objective, the Ford, Rockefeller, and Carnegie foundations often advanced U.S. interests at the expense of other nations. Incorporating case studies of American philanthropy in Nigeria, Chile, and Indonesia, Parmar boldly exposes the knowledge networks underwriting American dominance in the twentieth century.


American Philanthropic Foundations

American Philanthropic Foundations

Author: David C. Hammack

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2018-04-16

Total Pages: 390

ISBN-13: 0253025435

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Once largely confined to the biggest cities in the mid-Atlantic and Great Lakes states, philanthropic foundations now play a significant role in nearly every state. Wide-ranging and incisive, the essays in American Philanthropic Foundations: Regional Difference and Change examine the origins, development, and accomplishments of philanthropic foundations in key cities and regions of the United States. Each contributor assesses foundation efforts to address social and economic inequalities, and to encourage cultural and creative life in their home regions and elsewhere. This fascinating and timely study of contemporary America's philanthropic foundations vividly illustrates foundations' commonalities and differences as they strive to address pressing public problems.


American Foundations

American Foundations

Author: Mark Dowie

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2002-08-23

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 9780262262385

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In American Foundations, Mark Dowie argues that organized philanthropy is on the verge of an evolutionary shift that will transform America's nearly 50,000 foundations from covert arbiters of knowledge and culture to overt mediators of public policy and aggressive creators of new orthodoxy. He questions the wisdom of placing so much power at the disposal of nondemocratic institutions. As American wealth expands, old foundations such as Ford, Carnegie, Rockefeller, Pew, and MacArthur have grown exponentially, while newer trusts such as Mott, Johnson, Packard, Kellogg, Hughes, Annenberg, Hewlett, Duke, and Gates have surpassed them. Foundation assets now total close to $400 billion. Though this is a tiny sum compared to corporate and government treasuries, and foundation grants still total less than 10 percent of contributions made by individuals, foundations have power and influence far beyond their wealth. Their influence derives from the conditional nature of their grant making, their power from its leverage. Unlike previous historians of philanthropy who have focused primarily on the grant maker, Dowie examines foundations from the public's perspective. He focuses on eight key areas in which foundations operate: education, science, health, environment, food, energy, art, and human services. He also looks at their imagination, or lack thereof, and at the strained relationship between American foundations and American democracy. Dowie believes that foundations deserve to exist and that they can assume an increasingly vital role in American society, but only if they transform themselves from private to essentially public institutions. The reforms he proposes to make foundations more responsive to pressing social problems and more accountable to the public will almost certainly start an important national debate.


Budget of the U.S. Government, A New Foundation for American Greatness, Fiscal Year 2018

Budget of the U.S. Government, A New Foundation for American Greatness, Fiscal Year 2018

Author: Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget

Publisher: Government Printing Office

Published:

Total Pages: 72

ISBN-13: 9780160939228

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Contains analyses that are designed to highlight specified subject areas or provide other significant presentations of budget data that place the budget in perspective. This volume includes economic and accounting analyses; information on Federal receipts and collections; analyses of Federal spending; detailed information on Federal borrowing and debt; baseline or current services estimates; and other technical presentations that provide the Budget message of the President of the United States, and information on the President's priorities with summary tables. American citizens, financial stakeholders, economists, and historians that are interested in very detailed receipts of the Federal Government's debt and collection, economic and accounting analyses will be most interested in this volume set forth by the President's economic agenda policy. Federal agency personnel, Federal Government auditing firms, Federal contractors, media organizations and financial professionals, especially accountants and business managers may have interest in this volume that provides an in-depth picture of Federal spending priorities and management of America's debt. Public and academic libraries will want to make this annual reference product available for the general public in their Government collections. Students studying Public Finance, political scientists, and researchers will appreciate this detailed information analysis and supporting data. The entire printed collection of Fiscal Year 2018 Budget book volumes can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/catalog/budget-economy/federal-budgets-year/fiscal-year-2018-budget


The Foundation

The Foundation

Author: Joel L. Fleishman

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Published: 2007-01-09

Total Pages: 464

ISBN-13: 1586485385

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Foundations are a peculiarly American institution. They have been the dynamo of social change since their invention at the beginning of the last century. Yet they are cloaked in secrecy -- their decision-making and operations are inscrutable to the point of obscurity-leaving them substantially unaccountable to anyone. Joel Fleishman has been in and around foundations for almost half a century . . . running them, sitting on their boards, and seeking grants from them. And in this groundbreaking book he explains the history of foundations, tells the stories of the most successful foundation initiatives -- and of those that have failed -- and explains why it matters. The baby boomer generation is going to participate in the largest transfer of wealth in history when it passes on its assets to its successor generation. The third sector is about to become more powerful than ever. This book shows how foundations can provide a vital spur to the engine of the American, and the world's, economy -- if they are properly established and run.


Foundations and American Political Science

Foundations and American Political Science

Author: Emily Hauptmann

Publisher: University Press of Kansas

Published: 2022-11-01

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0700633774

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Foundations in the United States have long exerted considerable power over education and scholarly production. Although today’s titans of philanthropy proclaim more loudly their desire to transform schools and universities than did some of their predecessors, philanthropic programs designed to reshape educational institutions are at least a century old. In Foundations and American Political Science, Emily Hauptmann focuses on the postwar Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller programs that reshaped political science. She shows how significant changes in the methods and research interests of postwar political scientists began as responses to the priorities set by their philanthropic patrons. Informed by years of research in foundation and university archives, Foundations and American Political Science follows the course of several streams of private philanthropic money as they wended their way through public universities and political science departments in the postwar period. The programs launched by the Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller philanthropies as well as their reception at the universities of California and Michigan steered political scientists towards particular problems and particular ways of studying them. The rise of statistical analyses of survey data, the decline of public administration, and persistent conflicts over the discipline’s purpose and the best methods for understanding politics, Hauptmann argues, all had their roots in the ways that postwar universities responded to foundations’ programs. Additionally, the new emphasis universities placed on sponsored research sparked sharp disputes among political scientists over what should count as legitimate knowledge about politics and what the ultimate purpose of the discipline should be.


The Influence of the Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller Foundations on American Foreign Policy

The Influence of the Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller Foundations on American Foreign Policy

Author: Edward H. Berman

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 1984-06-30

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 0791496503

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This book examines the generally unrecognized role played by the Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller foundations in support of United States foreign policy, particularly since 1945. The foundations' efforts on behalf of American interests abroad have focused primarily on their support for a number of institutions of higher education in strategically located Third World nations. These institutions, modeled after foundation-supported American universities, were designed to train Third World leaders in norms that would encourage them—minimally—to assume a posture of neutrality toward American economic and political penetration of their societies. Dr. Berman's study challenges the oft-asserted, but undocumented, thesis of the American political right that these liberal foundations historically have pursued policies detrimental to United States interests. The evidence indicates how foundation policies and programs were formulated after close consultation with leaders of the American corporate sector and government officials, and how their activities were designed to further the objectives determined by those who influence the direction of United States foreign policy.


The Foundations of American Jewish Liberalism

The Foundations of American Jewish Liberalism

Author: Kenneth D. Wald

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019-01-17

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1108497896

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Shows how American Jews developed a liberal political culture that has influenced their political priorities from the founding to today.